The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made insult-laden threats against South Korea yesterday for considering unilateral sanctions on the North, calling the South’s new president and his government “idiots” and “a running wild dog gnawing on a bone given by the U.S.”
Kim Yo Jong’s diatribe came two days after South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that it was reviewing additional unilateral sanctions on North Korea over its recent barrage of missile tests. The ministry said it would also consider sanctions and clampdowns on North Korea’s alleged cyberattacks — a new key source of funding for its weapons program — if the North conducts a major provocation like a nuclear test.
“I wonder what ‘sanctions’ the South Korean group, no more than a running wild dog gnawing on a bone given by the U.S., impudently impose on North Korea,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. “What a spectacle sight!”
She called South Korea’s new conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol and his administration officials “idiots who continue creating the dangerous situation.” She added that South Korea “had not been our target” when Moon Jae-in — Yoon’s liberal predecessor who sought reconciliation with North Korea — was in power. It could be seen as a possible attempt to help foster anti-Yoon sentiments in South Korea.
“We warn the impudent and stupid once again that the desperate sanctions and pressure of the U.S. and its South Korean stooges against (North Korea) will add fuel to the latter’s hostility and anger and they will serve as a noose for them,” Kim Yo Jong said.
Kim Yo Jong’s official title is a vice department director of the Central Committee of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. But South Korea’s spy service believes she’s the North’s second-most powerful person after her brother and handles relations with South Korea and the United States.
While it’s not the first time Kim Yo Jong has used crude invectives on South Korea, North Korea is still expected to further escalate military tensions on the Korean Peninsula given she’s in charge of relations with South Korea and wields some influences on the North’s military, said analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea.
South Korea quickly shot back at Kim Yo Jong’s insults on Yoon, saying it’s “very deplorable for her to denounce our head of state with rough, substandard words and show no basic forms of etiquette.” Seoul’s Unification Ministry said in a statement that it also strongly condemns what it called “her impure attempt to incite antigovernment struggles and shake our system” in South Korea. MDT/AP
